Feeding The Light - Jaki Shelton Green (Jacar Press)

Today's book of poetry:
Feeding the Light.  Jaki Shelton Green.  Jacar Press.  Durham, North Carolina. 2014.

Any poet who mentions Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, Herbie Hancock and Ornette Coleman all in one poem is going to get the attention of an old jazz-rat like me.  These names fall of of Jaki Shelton Green's capable lips with such familiarity they might almost be an afterthought.  After all, what reasonable poet wouldn't want these giants wandering their poems and setting tempo?

But Today's book of poetry would be misleading our readers if we led you to believe that Feeding the Light is about jazz.  No, jazz lives here but it's not the addressee.  Green uses a stream of extreme consciousness to pinwheel through kaleidoscopic narratives.  There is light, as the title suggests, and it is refracted through a dozen different lens in real time.  The effect is splendid.

feeding the light

                for aunt lilly

                          (who taught me how to see in the dark)

we risk ice storms postpone passionate death to swirl head

first beyond wise breathing lessons beyond crimson soaked

necks crushed knuckles and stinking birth skin all the way

down past gray fields chaste moons yet light so pregnant it

seeps across insolent skies too ashamed to name the dances

too ashamed to name the shaman who eats the jazz behind

iron doors praying for half notes that cure blindness cure

the bestial that lurks inside places troubles on the water one

tenor eyelash at a time reappearing at the bottom of a worn

out morning after cup of mils pharoah herbie ornette we

risk falling out of the well used belly the platinum engraved

womb that cherishes a right handed bass player clean blue

velvet shoes that keep nameless eyes waiting he has a way

of singing thick thighs apart in the middle of blazing duets

knows how to pull blossoms out of the ground through

february snow drifts feeds a bastard sky child nothing but

horn a wild child reading the book of the thousand nights

and a night blue velvet shoes can't keep a damn lie straight

in between identifying frozen crushing faces slaughtered for

whispering jazz slaughtered for smelling like jazz wooden

zulu spears silver coins wet feathers we risk losing our

sense of flight our gypsy hearts in search of jazz eating

shaman who serves holy bread with blues water his voice

slicing daylight feeding small pieces to all that is left of a

brown jungle girl whose bones smoke up every juke joint in

between here and all the places she died alone on alabaster

steps voice strangled by kisses prayers abandoned weeping

shaman cures her dreams pours billie sarah nina ella down 

her throat horny hips thrust shatter shred blue velvet shoes

across the room a narrow mirror becomes a road and she

learns to fly straight through a glass sky she be music now

she be night-fed she be forgiveness rupturing a worn out

morning after cup of herself she be birthing remixing clocks

calendars numbers maps her sweat sweet round midnight

honey washing up onto a shore of seasons smelling like

drums tasting like a flute of curry we risk night searching

wanting to taste her skin.

...

Feeding the Light isn't about jazz but it has all the rhythms, drives like good jazz.  Green is making multitudinous connections at light speed, all held together with a rock solid bottom, foundation.

Feeding the Light is not about jazz but Jaki Shelton Green is wailing when she tells the story of an arranged marriage in Kandahar.  Any romantic mystique fouled by the green toothed grin and rancid breath of the aging groom.  Green explores the intimate violence of a woman's world, she goes places most of us never see.

waiting for love

alone cold mint tea in orange plastic torn djelaba a red

you forbid waiting drowning in six too many capsules of

magic trying to remember the words of the astrologer or

what you were screaming as you fled into the secret clay

wall of your brother's house trying to understand that i am

only allowed to pray on wednesdays pray only in the blue

mosque in Mazar-e-Sharif or join your sisters at Karte-

e-Shakhi this strange but magical Kabul my captor Kabul

the first time I drank the darkness of a particular Pashtun

male the morning i am face to face with Malalai the only

female police in Kandahar we play burqa eye games before

she slaps me shouting to lower my gaze cover my hennaed

wrists or wake up dead i return to these walls i name home

to the sacred stitches and colors rugs from your tribe my

dowry my art i smoke the ancient hashish i found buried

beneath the kitchen wall tiles your younger sister Selah

arrives tells me it belonged to your grandmother we smoke

sleep cry eat the feta olives grapes and dream of weddings

hair beaches nail polish dark warriors bearing Tibetan music

we arrive by caravan to the wedding site your father tells

me you will come so i search for you amongst the men

that encircle the wedding party and begin wishing that i

could place a hidden camera in the back of my burqa so

i can see you when you remain invisible i am the foreign

woman laughing undetected beneath my blue wedding

tent a gift from your mother reminding me that this is the

way for a refugee wife suddenly i smell the secret blend

of wedding oils against my face it is Zarah your sister

laughing far too openly amongst men hugging thanking me

for her happiness not understanding the smile in her eyes

i do not feel my body shift or her left hand seize the gun

from my pocket Zarah my sister-in-law forced to marry

the man with green teeth shoots her head off during the

beginning of the weeklong Eid-e-Ghorbon trying to forget

all i am forced to remember razor wire nights Koochie boys

wearing desert faces speaking to me in all the languages

of hunger begging for gold thread i don't remember the

name of the particular dark Pashtun male or the color of

Zarah's wedding dress i try to forget her smile the way

blood creates its own art spraying the cake the gifts of sugar

bread honey spices prayer carpets scarves from her sisters i

remember your daily screams when i forgot and opened the

door to visitors is Peshawar forgetting always to wear my

chador i remind you that i am the same woman you danced

with beneath the stars in Kandahar the same astrologer

who meets your eyes in the bazaar i am every woman in

the snow covered streets of Ghazni or in Herat Province

lighting candles in search of Zarah's gold teeth i am the lost

bullet lodged in the wedding cake that the man with green

teeth serves to his new bride Fatima i will meet her in the

bathroom stalls next door to the blue mosque and pretend

i do not see her tap my market basket remove the muslin

cloth covering the fresh chicken dates onions potatoes

lemons drop my knife into the deep pockets of her riding

skirts our smiles whispering salaams it is the coldest night

without you and i am preparing a dinner for your return the

foods of our passionate longings lentil and bulgar patties

stuffed eggplant kasseri cheese my brother smuggles from

Turkey chicken pilaf raisin compote i spend hours shaving

oiling my skin soaking in frankincense ginger jasmine water

arrange rose petals through our bed sharpen candle

sticks that will light this night there is no more hashish guns

or knives only the wedding feast waiting.

...

Green inhabits the lives of several unforgettable women, some almost mythic in stature and substance.  These are brave poems about strong women in a world where they are not always valued or appreciated.  To say the least.

Feeding the Light made for an energetic group of readers at our morning read.  Kathryn, our Jr. Editor, took the lead as she most often does these days.  The readers were unanimous, they wanted more.

Gender and culture make for a big battlefield but Green does not flinch.  

an eclipse of skin

i

the blood was calling

ii

ancient spirits

gather beneath erect feet

cry an ancestral anointment

kiss torn torso

restitch face to smile

iii

splintered hands

hold death songs

one breath crawling towards light

iv

hidden in every finger joint

hidden between shoulder and neck

hidden between heart and rib

v

yo hair is in my drink missus sarah

go ahead and move it william

you know you don't want to drink my hair

do you william?

...

Jaki Shelton Green is searching for the light in all things, storming through the darkness, spirit strong, reaching for the light.  This is the sort of optimism we applaud at Today's book of poetry.

Feeding the Light is one of those welcomed chapbooks that reads much bigger.  Once inside Jaki Shelton Green world everything expanded.  Green can burn.

Jaki Shelton Green

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jaki Shelton Green is a poet, creativity coach, teacher, and cultural activist.  Her books include Dead on Arrival, Dead on Arrival and New Poems, Conjure Blues, singing a tree into dance, and breath of the song.  The recipient of many awards, she was recently inducted into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame.  She lives in Mebane, North Carolina.

BLURB

“Rooted in hypnagogic logic and deeply seated in the tradition of Jayne Cortez, Quincy Troupe and Ntozake Shange, Jaki Shelton Green’s verse narratives pay homage to the orphic ethos of the mythmaking South with all the viscous verve of Van Gogh with a palette of syllables, images and words blurring through our senses like the thick, sleek wax of magnolia leaves. Her images conjure cultural beauty from a world-weary—yet ecstatic—kaleidoscopic lens while sustaining a pained relevance that serves up love from every angle of human anguish: the forced marriage of a child bride; memories of grandmothers and mentors, praiseworthy and proud. In Feeding the Light, Jaki Shelton Green captivates with a global vision. Her poems are totems and tomes; they are percussive, convulsive and constructive.”

—Tony Medina, author of Broke Baroque, The President Looks Like Me & Other Poems, and An Onion of Wars.

Jaki Shelton Green

Poet Jaki Shelton Green reads at the 2014 North Carolina Literary Festival, where Green was announced as a 2014 inductee to the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame (www.nclhof.org). 

jacarpress.com

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Poems cited here are assumed to be under copyright by the poet and/or publisher.  They are shown here for publicity and review purposes.  For any other kind of re-use of these poems, please contact the listed publishers for permission.

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